Hockey is a sport. It is actually one of the most physically taxing sports there is at any level. Dudes grind like hell non stop for an hour. I played a lot of sports at the high school level but hockey was easily the most demanding and required a diverse skillset.

The Sharks are beasts and have been the most consistent, successful Bay Area franchise for the past decade. I know that nobody cares though, which is somewhat sad, but they are legit.

I like your list of non-sports, Thunder. Sounds about right. Hockey? Of course it is a sport, one of the most beautiful and physically demanding. I grew up in Canada, so have a deep appreciation for this sport, where folks make impossible moves at 30-40 miles an hour on skates, threading passes, making and avoiding massive hits and are probably among the most fit athletes in the world. There is little more exciting than end to end action, esp. seen in person. There is more action in 10 minutes of hockey than in a three hour game of baseball, where it is possible to play an entire nine innings without breaking a sweat. Baseball is on the fence to me, since not sure you can call something a sport where you don't raise your heart rate. The old saying about baseball is 3 minutes of action crammed into three hours.

To Live is A Value Judgment - Albert Camus
3 reasons for living: Jazz, Hoops and women

Thunder wrote:Hockey is a sport. It is actually one of the most physically taxing sports there is at any level. Dudes grind like hell non stop for an hour. I played a lot of sports at the high school level but hockey was easily the most demanding and required a diverse skillset.

The Sharks are beasts and have been the most consistent, successful Bay Area franchise for the past decade. I know that nobody cares though, which is somewhat sad, but they are legit.

To be clear -

Sports: Basketball, Baseball, Football, Hockey, Tennis, and Track.

Where’s the etc. because you left out a few, including the most physically (& mentally) demanding, nonstop, and violent sport there is in Boxing. I know you’re just going with what's popular (although tennis and track are nowhere in the same level as the first 4) but there’s also Soccer, Cycling, other contact sports, etc. and a whole lot of other Olympic/lesser-known pro games.

As for non-sports, yeah, I can pretty much agree, along with a whole list of many other games.

But I certainly don’t want to confuse sports and athletes. You can have good athletes playing in games not considered a sport.

man - I loved it when Kasparov came across the board and bitch-slapped his opponent at Reykjavik in '87...what about volleyball and water polo - 2 vicious and highly demanding contests? That brings me back to baseball. Some of the outfielders can go a whole game without running, jumping or in any way breaking a sweat. I know it is a sport, but it is probably the least athletic of all the team sports except for cricket. Would you agree with the proposition that something that doesn't involve sweat and a raised heart rate qualifies as a game and not a sport? Doesn't diminish it, the skill required to be a great billiards player is staggering, but makes a distinction.